The California Supreme Court has five civil cases scheduled for its April calendar, each addressing important questions of labor and insurance law.
- Independent Contractors or Employees – Class Actions: In Ayala v. Antelope Valley Newspapers, Inc., S206874, the court will address the determination of whether and when common issues dominate in a class action in which the putative class members – in this case, newspaper home delivery carriers – are claiming that they were improperly classified as independent contractors when they should be employees. The trial court denied certification on all claims, while the Court of Appeal approved certification on the issue of classification, but agreed that the wage and hour claims lacked commonality. In two other Court of Appeal cases which addressed this issue, one also found that the classification issue should not be certified as a class, while the other approved certification. (Sotelo and Bradley, respectively).
- Federal Arbitration Law v. California Labor Law: The matter of Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, S204032, addresses the continuing dispute over the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion on California law. In Concepcion, the U.S. Supreme Court empowered waivers of class arbitrations in most consumer contracts, which has resulted in a series of responses by California courts, as previously discussed by Sedgwick partner Kirk Jenkins here. The issue in Iskanian is whether Concepcion implicitly overruled the court’s decision in Gentry, which held that a class arbitration waiver in an employment contract is not enforceable if the prohibition of class relief would undermine the vindication of the employees’ unwaivable statutory rights and would pose a serious obstacle to the enforcement of the state’s overtime laws.
- What Rights Do Undocumented Workers Have? In Salas v. Sierra Chemical Co., S196568, the trial court dismissed claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act in light of after-acquired evidence and unclean hands, based on plaintiff’s use of false documentation to obtain this employment. The court initially granted review to address whether California statutes preserving access to state protections and remedies regardless of immigration status barred such a ruling. The court then requested supplemental briefing on the issue of whether federal preemption precluded an undocumented worker from obtaining, as a remedy for a violation of “state labor and employment laws,” an award of compensatory remedies, including back pay.
- Can an Advertisement That Does Not Name or Refer to a Product be Disparaging? On the grounds that the advertisement at issue neither named nor disparaged the underlying plaintiff’s product, the trial court granted summary judgment for the insurer in the related coverage dispute, which was affirmed on appeal in Hartford Casualty Ins. Co. v. Swift Distribution, Inc., S207172. The court granted review on the issue of whether the pleading allegations were sufficient to constitute disparagement, perhaps by implication, to support a duty to defend.
- Who Owns a Life Insurance Policy? The court granted review over In re Marriage of Valli S193990 to determine the ownership of a life insurance policy. The Court of Appeal concluding that the insurance policy on the husband’s life was the wife’s separate property upon dissolution of the marriage, even though the policy was purchased during the marriage and the premiums prior to the couple’s separation were paid with community funds, because the policy listed the wife as the owner.
The Supreme Court files its opinion within 90 days of oral argument, which here take place on April 2 and 3, 2014. So, we should have decisions on these issues by or before July 2014. For more details on Labor (compensation cases or other) or Insurance cases currently pending before the California Supreme Court, follow the links to see our summaries.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Ken Lund (no changes).
